The symposium is to display the research result of the plan “The Formation of Modern China: Sino-foreign Relations and the Formation of Modern China”. The team is comprised of domestic youngsters of diplomatic-history studies of China. Since 2011 the team has organized the annual meetings periodically to show their powerful academic energy and the intention to interpret the diplomatic history of China. 

The main direction of the symposium was “The Huge and Tiny History of the Modern Diplomacy of China”. Several scholars were invited to participate in the conference, including the research fellows of Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Tsu-yu Chen, Miin-ling Yu, Hong-yuan Chu, etc. and other distinguished scholars from domestic and foreign universities.

There were 11 essays delivered in the symposium. In addition, there were four aspects in the symposium to deeply discuss the conference topics and these aspects were the bilateral relations, characters’ experience, organizations and the affairs around China. With the four aspects the participants could explore the effect from the different sort of diplomatic activities so as to inspect how the Chinese government faced and solved the problems from the international community.

The first session was “The Huge and Tiny Diplomatic History of the Bilateral Relations”. The issues ranged from the restoration of the concept “serving the great power” and cultural identity of Joseon in the period of Qing dynasty, to the relations between China and Iran and the conclusion of the treaties after WWI.

The second session was “The Huge and Tiny Diplomatic History of Characters’ Experience”. The participated scholars conducted the research regarding the diplomatic situation of the modern China by observing the individual characters and their behaviors like Yuan Shi-kai and his boundary survey around Weihaiwei, and Wu Xiu-quan and his work in the U.N.

The third session was “The Huge and Tiny Diplomatic History of Organizations”. There were three essays that tightly linked up with one another and portrayed the diplomatic developmental mechanism of different respects.

The fourth session was “The Huge and Tiny Diplomatic History of the Affairs around China”. The three speakers all focused on the problems of the boundaries, inclusive of the Irene Incident and the countermeasures of the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek. They observed the restoration of the Chinese and foreign order and their negotiations through the surrounding affairs.

The 11 essays delivered in the symposium put emphases on the common axis and cared about each international effect of modern China although those essays were written from different observed standpoints and with different historical background. Furthermore, from the microscopic and macroscopic aspects, the authors of the essays provided everyone with the conscientious and solid interpretation with respect to the formation of the modern diplomacy of China.

Beside the above announcement of research result, there’re still the publishing of the new work from the participant. Moreover, the essay gathering of this symposium will be issued in the end of the year as usual in order to make the academic circle and society get the feedback and to enhance the academic visibility of the team.